Plan Acceptable to All Concerned in Palestine Considered by Britain

The British government is now engaged in considering the Palestine question and hopes to achieve a settlement which will be acceptable to all concerned, declared Dr. Drummond Shiels, under-secretary for the Colonies, in the House of Commons. The statement was made after a motion to adjourn the House by F. S. Cocks, Labor M.P., in which he directed the attention of Parliament to the position of the Palestine Arabs and again stressed the necessity for the publication of the Sir Henry MacMahon correspondence. He argued that the publication of this correspondence was essential before the House comes to a decision on the report of the Palestine Inquiry Commission.

Dr. Shiels pointed out that the government’s attitude was not one of easy optimism but he said it was determined to find a solution if it could and it appealed to the House of Commons to have confidence in the government’s good intentions and to believe that not by raking up controversies of the past but by tackling the difficulties of the present and the future could a satisfactory conclusion be reached.

The under-secretary for the Colonies then recalled Winston Churchill’s statement in the House in 1921, wherein he pointed out that the correspondence with the Sheriff of Mecca was long and of an inconclusive character and that it ended with the entry of the Sheriff into the War before any definite or formal agreement had been reached. It was also mentioned that Churchill had said that whatever British pledges had been made to the Sheriff of Mecca were given to him alone and not to the Palestine Arabs.

Succeeding governments, Dr. Shiels showed, had also considered it undesirable to publish the correspondence between Sir Henry and the Sheriff of Mecca and the present government was now only adopting the attitude of its predecessors. No object would be served by reopening the subject, declared Dr. Shiels, the government taking the view that it had no practical bearing on the constitutional and political aspects of the Palestine question.

Supporting Cocks’ appeal, Fenner Brockway, also a Laborite, mentioned the fact that there were 39 prisoners in the Jerusalem jail on a hunger strike who demanded the abolition of the death sentences on August rioters, the abolition of flogging, handcuffing and forced labor for political prisoners and urged a special grading of prisoners. Brockway said that a better atmosphere would be created in Palestine if improved treatment were accorded to political prisoners.

Replying to Brockway, Dr. Shiels admitted that the prison building was old but he assured the House that the government was anxious to see that conditions were improved and it is making every effort to make the prison administration beyond criticism. He said that he had no information about the hunger strike but promised to make inquiries.

A number of Labor M.P.’s including J. J. McShane, G. L. Mander and Gordon Lang, described Dr. Shiel’s reply as unsatisfactory and pressed the government to reconsider its decision to publish the MacMahon correspondence.